Monday 31st
August 1998
NET USE CAN CAUSE DEPRESSION -
STUDY
Net surfers who spend as little
as a few hours a week online at home experience higher levels of depression
and loneliness than if they'd used the Net less frequently, according to
the results of a 2-year Carnegie Mellon University released today.
The study, which looked at the social and psychological effects of Internet
use at home surprised the researchers. "We were shocked by the findings,
because they are counterintuitive to what we know about how the Net is being
used socially," said Robert Kraut, a social psychology professor at
Carnegie Mellon's Human Computer Interaction Institute. "We're not talking
here about extremes, either. These were normal adults and their families.
And on average, for those who used the Internet most, things got worse,"
he said. Even though participants in the study used inherently social features
such as e-mail and chat rooms, researchers observed a decline in interaction
with family members and a reduction in their circles of friends that directly
corresponded to the amount of time spent online. As a result, the study (entitled
HomeNet) suggests that the interactive medium may be no more socially healthy
than older forms of mass media, and questions the nature of "virtual"
communication. "Our hypothesis is there are more cases where you're building
shallow relationships, leading to an overall decline in feeling of connection
to other people," Kraut said.
Friday 28th
August 1998
AUSTRALIA GETS DIGITAL CERTIFICATION
SERVICE
A new service to provide 3rd-party
authentication and certification of Australian web sites has been launched
by accountants KPMG. The new
service - similar to services operated in the USA by VeriSign and Thawte
- will produce Australia's first Web site identification operation that validates
both a company's credentials and its domain name, allowing businesses to
ascertain the security and authenticity of companies trading online. "KPMG
has taken best-of-breed CA technology from recognised security specialist
Spyrus and combined it with Dun & Bradstreet's definitive database of
registered companies to create what is currently Australia's most sophisticated
and secure server authentication solution," according to a spokesman. KPMG
and their parters Com Tech are also working on producing digital certificates,
which are expected to be ready when smart cards debut on the Australian Internet
in around 18 months.
Thursday 27th
August 1998
HOTMAIL HIT BY BUG
Microsoft's free Web-based email
service Hotmail says it is working
"feverishly" to fix a newly-discovered security flaw that allows malicious
JavaScript programmers alter the Hotmail interface and steal user passwords.
The problem came to light today after networking solutions reseller
Specialty Installations
posted a demonstration of it on the company's web site. Dubbed "Hot" Mail,
the demonstration is an email message containing a "Trojan Horse" JavaScript
program that alters the Hotmail user interface. In this altered interface,
any command the user makes yields a bogus Hotmail "time expired" message
asking the user to reenter his or her user name and password. Once these
are entered, the user returns to the standard Hotmail site - but their user
name and password are on their way to the malicious coder, or, in the case
of the demonstration, to Specialty Installations. "It does appear to work"
said Sean Fee, Hotmail's product marketing director. "It appears to be a
security breach within Hotmail. We are investigating its feasibility and
scope and we'll fix it as quickly as possible. Protecting our personal email
users and their accounts is of paramount importance to us." According to
Tom Cervenka, who wrote the demonstration program which exposed the flaw,
the defect exists because HotMail allows users to receive JavaScript code
i email - something that other free email services (such as MailExcite! and
YahooMail) prohibit. "I'd recommend that HotMail users switch JavaScript
off in their browsers for the present," he said. "I can't have been the only
person to figure this out."
Wednesday 26th
August 1998
3.6M AUSTRALIANS NOW USE
NET
The Australian Bureau of
Statistics (ABS) reported today that there are now 3.6 million Internet
users in Australia and approximately 1 million online households. According
to the ABS, usage grew 14% in 3 months between February and May this year
alone. By May, the ABS found that 971,000 Australian households had access
to the Net (up from 854,000 in February) and that nearly 1.4 million people
aged 18 and over use the Net once or more a week. The ABS estimates that
more people access the Net outside home than in kit at present, and that
2.3 million people accessed the Net at work or other out-of- home locations.
The ABS study also shows that 409,000 Australian adults used the Net for
buying or ordering in the 12 months to May, conducting 1.1 million transactions
for private use. The majority of shoppers purchased from home, the ABS found,
and 70% sourced goods and services from overseas, with 75% of purchasers
spending up to $250 and 25% spending more than that. The ABS also found that
almost 80% of online households are located in capital cities; that 50% of
them were nuclear families; and that - nationwide - 35% of households with
incomes higher than $66,000 had Internet access. The ABS believes that the
average Australian user community is 55% male and 45% female.
Tuesday 25th
August 1998
ACCC WATCHING MICROSOFT
LAWSUIT
The Australian Competition
and Consumer Commission is closely monitoring the current anti-trust
suit being mounted against Microsoft by the US Department of Justice,
it emerged today. Netscape Australia's managing director Rob Stewart announced
at a news conference attended by Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale that ACCC officers
had approached the company for discussions about the US suit, and that he
had spoken with them "at length" before referring them to the US head office
for further comment. At the news conference Mr Barksdale said that Microsoft's
sales practices had cost Netscape an estimated $US1 billion in lost revenues
and wiped $US4-5 billion off the company's capitalisation, despite the stock
doubling in value over the last 6 months. Mr Barksdale was in Australia to
meet with Federal Communications Minister Richard Alston, Victorian Premier
Jeff Kennett and Victorian Multimedia Minister Alan Stockdale, as well as
meet local Netscape staff and appraise them of the company's current
strategy.
Monday 24th
August 1998
NOIE PROPOSES NEW CERTIFICATION
BODY
The Australian
National Office for the Information
Economy (NOIE) has proposed setting up a new national body in Australia
to deal with electronic authentication regulation to counter the lack of
certainty in online transactions. Under the proposal, contained in a discussion
paper released by the NOIE last week, a new National Authentication
Authority (NAA) would issue digital 'signatures' or 'certificates' in
Australia in a similar manner to the Verisign and Thawte digital
certificates which are issued by private companies in the USA. Minister for
the Information Economy Senator Richard Alston said that the NAA would provide
certainty for businesses and individuals making transactions on the Net,
and would help accelerate the development of the e-commerce market in Australia.
Under the NOIE proposal, the new NAA would be composed of government, business,
technical, consumer and industry representatives and would be publicly funded
in its early stages, eventually swapping to a self-funding user-pays model
in much the same way as the Australian domain registry.
Friday 21st
August 1998
TELSTRA MARKET SHARE
SHRINKS
Telstra's
share of the lucrative long distance, mobile and international call
markets has continued to shrink over the last 12 months, according to an
industry analysis released today. During 1997/98, Telstra's combined share
of the three areas in which it's exposed to full competition declined from
58% to 52% - with the remaining 48% spread of the market spread between rivals
Optus (20%), Voda-Phone (10%) and all other telecoms competitors (18%).
Meanwhile, rival One.Tel announced to the Australian Stock Exchange
(ASX) today that its sales and profits had climbed to $209 million and $10.5
million respectively last financial year, up from $150 million in sales and
a $5 million profit in 1997. The revenue figures make One.Tel the 8th largest
telecommunications provider in Australia based on telco profit results reported
to the ASX to date..
Thursday 20th
August 1998
TELSTRA STRIKE MAY DISRUPT
NET
A proposed national 48-hour
strike by disgruntled
Telstra workers next week
may lead to brown-outs on the Australian Internet, it was revealed today.
The workers, who are locked in protracted enterprise agreement negotiations
with the telecommunications giant, have threatened to down tools after three
officials from the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union were served
with writs yesterday claiming that they were encouraging industrial action
and hurting Telstra's business. If implemented, the strike would leave ISPs
or private line customers suffering connection problems to Telstra's backbone
networks - a surprisingly frequent occurrence - without support or remedy
until the strike concluded, effectively blocking their subscribers from accessing
the web orr email. It could also "bring down" hundreds of online businesses
hosted on affected ISP web servers.
Wednesday 19th
August 1998
NET A "GST LOOPHOLE"
Australian Prime Minister John
Howard came under attack from wary businesses in Townsville today when
a Townsville Chamber of Commerce representative asked him how the Government
propose to plug the GST loophole that the Internet would provide if a Goods
and Services Tax were introduced into Australia in the year 2000. Local bookshop
owner Michael Rocke popped the question at a Chamber luncheon organised
for the Prime Minister's north Queensland tour. He pointed out that local
businesses were already starting to feel the effects of online purchases
of travel, books, magazines and other goods as the nation "wired up", and
that this would only worsen if a GST were introduced without some way to
prevent Australians escaping it by buying goods and services from overseas
through the Net. Prime Minister Howard was forced to admit that the Internet
and e-commerce is one area that has yet to be resolved in the Government's
proposal to restructure the Australian tax system.
Tuesday 18th
August 1998
NET BREAKS 36.5M DOMAINS -
SURVEY
Network
Wizards' 9th global Internet domain survey - released yesterday -
estimates that the number of domains on the Net had reached approximately
39,739,000 by July 1998 - up from 1,313,500 when the company conducted its
first survey in January 1993. On this standard, the Internet has ballooned
in size by around 30 times over the last 5.5 years. The survey also found
that Australian .edu.au and Australian .com.au domains were amongst the top
50 2nd-level domains in the world for the survey period, though this is likely
to change as the rest of the world steadily climbs aboard the Internet
revolution, and estimates that there are now close to 21,000 "wired" commercial
domains in Australia. As expected, .com domains are the most common on the
Net, accounting for 10.3 million entries, followed by .net (7 million), .edu
(4.4 million), .mil (1.3 million), .org (644,000) and .gov (612,000). On
a pure host count, the US leads the world in Internet connectivity, followed
by several northern European countries and Canada.
Monday 17th
August 1998
FTC ATTACKS GEOCITIES OVER DATA
REMARKETING
The US Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) has accused
Geocities of secretly reselling
personal information the popular host collected from its two-million-plus
subscribers to marketers. The claim, which Geocities has denied, was the
first Internet privacy test case mounted by the FTC. It follows hot on the
heels of Geocities' public listing late last week, which saw the $US17 stock
rapidly climb to $51 within a few days, before collapsing back to $US39 as
news of the FTC action broke. In a private deal brokered with the FTC - "to
resolve the matter quickly," according to a spokesman - Geocities have agreed
to advise customers of the company's true data collection practices and to
give each one the opportunity to delete any data previously gathered on them.
In exchange, the FTC has agreed not to pursue further legal action against
the company. Geocities had previously required all subscribers joining its
free web hosting service to complete a form which collected extensive information
on their occupation, income and related demographics. The form also asked
applicants whether they wished to receive specific offers and promotions
from other companies. The nub of the FTC allegation was that Geocities misled
consumers by selling this information on to third parties beyond those
specifically mentioned on the sign-up form.
Friday 14th
August 1998
WE'RE MOVING HOUSE!
Australian Cybermalls will be
moving to a new host during the next week - our second move in as many years.
The reason for the relocation is that our site traffic has gradually become
too much for our existing hosts to continue to service. So we'll be relocating
to a more suitably sourced hosting company in the near future. This move
may put Australian Cybermalls out of action for a 24 to 48 hour period at
some point, and the need to shift close to 100Mb of data and re-test scripts,
forms and counters is likely to induce some delays in our planned update
schedules as well. We apologise in advance to anyone who may be inconvenienced
by this.
Thursday 13th
August 1998
ARTUFRAME ARTCLIQUE OFFERS FREE
PRINTS
Australian Cybermalls affiliate
ARTUFRAME has launched ArtClique - a savings club
for regular visitors that offers a free print in exchange for the cost of
postage ($US7.75 US, $US24.75 outside USA). ArtClique is the largest online
art, poster, print and framing site on the Internet, and the new ArtClique
club provides regular visitors with a wide range of benefits including a
permanent 20% discount on regular art and print prices, $25 gift certificates
for participating in online focus groups or market research, advance notice
of new products, forums or exhibitions in the gallery, a free online calendar,
free electronic postcards and a long list of worthwhile additional services.
ARTUFRAME have also recently re-designed their site for rapid performance.
Wednesday 12th
August 1998
NSW POLICE LAUNCH ONLINE
SITE
The
NSW police have launched
a new site where visitors can obtain information about police operations
and missing persons or give information about drug dealers. The site also
contains information on latest police initiatives (eg: recent new knife laws
and Operation Noah) and has an annual budget of $40,000. Police Director
of Public Affairs, Sue Netterfield, said that site is perfect for
developing effective channels of communication between police and the public.
"We received numerous requests through the site for further information about
the new knife laws after television commercials were screened," she said.
"There's also a huge interest in recruitment, missing persons, safety tips
and Crime Stoppers information". Police Minister Paul Whelan said
that the site was just one example of crime enforcement going high-tech,
and said that police were also developing technology to track criminals
online.
Tuesday 11th
August 1998
GERMANY TO BECOME NET
POWERHOUSE
According to a report by Internet
research firm Jupiter
Communications, Germany will continue to have the highest volume
of e-commerce sales in Europe into the next decade. The study predicts that
by 2002, the online German market will account for US$782m in online travel
sales, US$674m in book sales, $US216m in music sales and US$174m in software
sales. Germany currently has more than 7.5 million people online (the highest
in Europe) and 14% of those already shop online. Jupiter predicts that this
will rise to 27.2 million by 2002, with 40% regularly using the Net to purchase
goods and services. At present the UK trails Germany with 7 million online,
and this will only rise to 19 million by 2002 (and France, with just 2 million
online, will rise to just 8.3 million over the same time frame). This means
that Germany looks likely to continue to offer a larger market due to its
much larger online population into the 21st Century, and perhaps ultimately
become the "Net powerhouse" of the EEC. Nonetheless, the study emphasises
that while the European e-commerce market could be worth as much as US$3.3
billion by 2002, it will continue to lag behind the US market, which could
be worth US$37.5 billion by then.
Monday 10th
August 1998
DIGITAL DIVIDE EXPANDING, NOT
SHRINKING
The US Commerce
Department's second report on the state of development of the Internet
in America has found that the "digital divide" is widening, not shrinking,
as the 90s draw to a close. This is despite an overall increase in computer
ownership and use of the Internet.
"Falling
through the Net II" reports on the extent of computer, telephone
and net usage in the USA and notes that those living in rural areas with
low incomes are the least likely to go online. Households with married couples
and children were twice as likely to have Net access as single- parent
households, the study found. And those with tertiary education are ten times
as likely to own a computer as those with eight years schooling or less.
The study also found that the difference in usage between White, African
American and Latino households is bigger than it was three years ago. White
households are twice as likely to own computers and be online as Latinos
or African Americans. Of those households with Internet access, 40.8% are
estimated to be white, 19.4% Latino and 19.3% black. In addition, those
minorities - living in rural areas - are even less likely to have computers
or Net access. The survey, based on the responses of over 50,000 households,
found that 13.9% of homes with incomes under US$35,000 were online, while
nearly half (49.2%) of homes with incomes of US$75,000 were
online.
Friday 7th August
1998
ONLINE CAR SALES TAKING
OFF
According to Irish Internet
research company NUA, online car
sales are starting to take off on the Net, with some major sites like Microsoft's
CarPoint and Autoweb reporting a four-fold increase in business since January
this year. Autoweb reportedly assisted in the sale of $US660M worth of new
and second-hand vehicles over the last year, while CarPoint claimed $US250M
worth of new car sales in June alone, derived from 671,000 visitors who visited
the site during the month. As a result, some analysts now estimate that up
to 5% of all new cars bought in the USA this coming year will be purchased
online. Part of the reason for the popularity of online car sales, NUA says,
is because the top tier automotive sites are not only selling vehicles but
are offering a range of services - such as advice on financing, insurance,
leasing and information on second hand car trade-in values - that are not
often available to buyers on terrestrial car lots. The lack of haggling
associated with online car purchases is also seen as a major benefit by many
buyers. It is a measure of how rapidly the market is expanding that less
than two and a half years ago
Toyota Australia made national headlines when it secured 6 new vehicle sales
from its web site in its first year of online trading.
Thursday 6th
August 1998
INTERNET COPYRIGHT GETS A
BOOST
The US Congress approved the
new Digital
Millennium Copyright Act today to provide extra safeguards for music,
software and written works distributed over the Internet - and to outlaw
devices that can crack copyright protection, such as digital watermark removers
and de-encrypters. The bill implements treaties signed between 157 countries
at the World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) Geneva conference
on digital information and copyrights held in December 1996, and is the first
Internet copyright law in the world. The Act - which may require some minor
modifications before it is signed by US President Clinton - also provides
some protection to ISPs and telecommunications carriers for copyright
infringements carried out by their customers, and to database owners (though
it rejects the sui generis database treaty proposed at the WIPO conference
which would have allowed groups such as the NBA and Lexis-Nexis to copyright
information in their databases which was created from collating
publicly-available information). There is also some protection afforded to
legitimate researchers, though critics argue that the initial provisions
in the bill may need to be extended to provide parallelism with terrestrial
copyright laws. The Act is expected to become a blueprint for similar legislation
by other WIPO member nations (including Australia), ultimately providing
the Internet with a uniform set of global copyright laws and giving the Net's
content creators some measure of security over their works for the first
time.
Wednesday 5th
August 1998
COMPAQ PAYS $US3.35M FOR ALTA VISTA
DOMAIN
Compaq has joined Microsoft
in the league of major corporations compelled to pay out large sums of money
to acquire legal rights to use well-known brand names they've built up after
agreeing to pay a record $US3.35 million to acquire the www.altavista.com
domain from its owners, AltaVista Technology of San Jose, California. Compaq
- formerly Digital Equipment Corporation - had launched the Alta Vista search
engine in November 1995 without bothering to investigate if the domain was
available. It had, in fact, already been registered by AltaVista Technology
owner Jack Marshall in January 1994 for his own startup company. Since
that time, Compaq has been forced to use the subdomain
www.altavista.digital.com
But many consumers, unaware of the reasons for this, have been
inadvertently finding themselves on the San Jose company's web site ever
since rather than at the popular search engine. Compaq had waged a prolonged
two-year court battle against Mr Marshall in an attempt to secure the domain
but have now agreed to pay him a full settlement. In exchange, he will give
Compaq the rights to the domain name from August 31st.
Last month Microsoft was
forced into a similar humiliating backdown when they were compelled to pay
a US software developer $5 million for the rights to use the name Internet
Explorer on their browser.
Tuesday 4th
August 1998
TELSTRA/AFR AWARDS CLOSE
TOMORROW
Nominations for the third annual
Telstra-Australian Financial Review
Internet Awards will close tomorrow, August 5th. The awards have
so far attracted almost 1,000 entries in 19 distinct categories with commercial
sites the most popular, as expected, followed by personal home pages and
arts/entertainment sites. However, because the competition is restricted
to Australian sites hosted on domestic servers, this number has fallen somewhat
short of the organisers' initial expectations of 2,000 entrants, with many
well-known Australian sites forced offshore by high domestic bandwidth tariffs
conspicuous by their absence. So far the organisers have rejected more than
60 nominees for matters ranging from "inappropriate content" to non- domestic
hosting. Assessment will be undertaken over the next few months by a group
of 52 judges chosen from internet companies, the academic sector and the
content business, many of whom have also submitted their own sites to the
event. However, organisers have been quick to point out that systems have
been put in place to ensure that judges will not be able to vote on their
own sites or those of direct competitors or to influence the outcome of voting.
Final winners will be announced later this year.
Monday 3rd August
1998
AUSTRALIAN NET REBOUNDS IN
JULY
The Australian Internet took
an upward swing last month according to the search engines we monitor to
construct our monthly Australian Internet Growth Index (AIGI). The
bulk of the swing is probably more indicative that the search engines we
poll to construct the AIGI now refresh their content over a longer time interval
rather than any sudden upsurge in Australian sites. Nonetheless, Adelaide
posted an unusually large gain on a population basis over the preceding month,
followed by Sydney. The August 1st figures (with July 1st figures in brackets)
are as follows:
Australian
Internet Growth Index July 1998
(Figures Show Estimated Sites) |
-
Brisbane - 2,755 (2,505)
-
Sydney - 10,004 (8,602)
-
Melbourne - 7,066 (6,224)
-
Adelaide - 3,697 (2,420)
|
-
Perth - 2,815 (2,418)
-
Hobart - 1,135 (952)
-
Canberra - 2,279 (1,900)
-
Darwin - 2,554 (2,404)
|
|
During July Australian Cybermalls
hosted 44,702 visitors, up from the 40,156 visitors who dropped by
to see us in June 1998. At least part of this rise was due to a reduction
in the congestion that bedevilled the Australian Internet backbone in
June.
|
